Jake Sullivan

After graduating from law school, Sullivan clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for Justice Stephen Breyer of the United States Supreme Court.[4][9][10] After his clerkships, Sullivan returned to his hometown of Minneapolis to practice law at Faegre & Benson[9] and taught law as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.[4] After Faegre & Benson, Sullivan worked as chief counsel to Senator Amy Klobuchar,[4][10] who connected him to Clinton.[2]

In 2008, Sullivan was an advisor to Hillary Clinton during the primary cycle and then to Barack Obama during the general election campaign. He prepared Clinton and Obama for debates.[8] When Clinton became Secretary of State, Sullivan joined as her deputy chief of staff[11] and Director of Policy Planning, and he travelled with her to 112 countries.[12]

Sullivan worked in the Obama administration as Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.[13] He became Biden's top security aide in February 2013 after Clinton stepped down as Secretary of State.[14] In those posts, he played a role in shaping U.S. foreign policy towards Libya, Syria, and Myanmar.[10]

On June 20, 2014, The New York Times reported that Sullivan was leaving the administration in August 2014 to teach at Yale Law School.[12] As of 2020, he is a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.[15]

In November 2013, the Associated Press reported that officials in the Obama administration had been in secret contact with Iranian officials throughout 2013 about the feasibility of an agreement over the Iranian nuclear program. The report stated that American officials, including Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, Senior White House Iran Advisor Puneet Talwar, and Sullivan, had secretly met with their Iranian counterparts at least five times face to face in Oman.[16] Those efforts paved the way for the Geneva interim agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, known officially as the Joint Plan of Action, signed by Iran and the P5+1 countries in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 24, 2013.[10][17]

Since then, Sullivan has regularly attended bilateral consultations with Iran in Geneva as a member of the U.S. delegation on the Iran nuclear negotiations.[13][18]

Sullivan was Hillary Clinton's chief foreign policy adviser during her 2016 bid for the presidency.[19] He was reported to be the only senior staffer who kept on asking if it wasn't a good idea for her to spend more time in the Midwestern swing states as the election approached.[20] Sullivan was prominent in many of the Podesta emails released by WikiLeaks during the 2016 US presidential election, including Sullivan questioning if Democratic primary candidate Martin O'Malley's 100% clean energy by 2050 plan was "realistic".[21] After the election, he confessed to feeling "a keen sense of responsibility" for Clinton's defeat.[22]

After his work with the Clinton campaign, Sullivan joined Macro Advisory Partners, a risk advisory company, in January 2017.[23] While at Macro Advisory Partners, Sullivan advised both Lyft and Uber.[23][24] Following the Clinton campaign, he joined the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire as a member of the faculty and senior fellow.[25]

On November 22, 2020, Sullivan was announced as President-elect Joe Biden's choice to be National Security Advisor.[26] Upon his appointment, Sullivan stated that the early priorities of Biden's National Security Council (NSC) are the COVID-19 pandemic, "restructuring the NSC to make public health a permanent national security priority", and China relations.[3] He also emphasized that the Biden administration aims to repair American relations with allies that were damaged during the Trump administration.[3]